The Oklahoma State Senate today approved legislation in a bipartisan
vote making Oklahoma the 24th state to require health insurance
plans to pay the cost of routine medical care for participants in
a clinical trial.

The bill’s principal author, State Sen. Andrew
Rice (D-OKC), called the vote a “significant victory for
patients who assume that playing by the rules and paying their premiums
on time means that their insurance company can’t walk away
from them”.

Rice’s bill is known as “Steffanie’s Law”,
named after 18-year-old Steffanie Collings, from Noble, who was
diagnosed with brain cancer at the age of 14. Her insurance carrier
has refused coverage since she underwent clinical trials to treat
her brain tumor leaving her family with more than $400,000 in unpaid
medical bills.

"Routine medical care costs" are the usual costs such
as doctor visits, hospital stays, clinical laboratory tests, x-rays,
etc., that patients would receive whether or not they were participating
in a clinical trial. Rice said that health insurers wrongly claim
that a clinical trial drives up the cost of cancer care and for
this reason, they deny further coverage to patients who participate
in these potential life-saving treatments.

“The current situation is a lose-lose for Oklahomans,”
Rice said. “The lack of coverage is a significant barrier
to many patients who don’t qualify for Medicare and can’t
afford to pay medical costs independently plus it makes it harder
for researchers to successfully conduct trials that could improve
prevention and treatment options.”

The National Cancer Institute states that clinical trials are the
only safe and effective way that new cancer treatments can be established.

Senator Rice’s plan does not seek to cover the research costs
connected to the conduct of clinical trials. These costs are normally
paid by the research facility or by pharmaceutical companies.

"Families in Oklahoma should not have to make this impossible
choice between potential life-saving treatments and personal financial
ruin," Rice said. "Studies show that there is little difference
between the costs of medical care for patients who have undergone
clinical trials and those who have not.”

Rice pointed to recent studies by the National Cancer Institute
which confirm that the costs of allowing patients to participate
in NCI-sponsored clinical trials are minimal. Participants in cancer
treatment trials “do not receive more expensive services than
similarly situated patients who do not enter trials,” the
researchers concluded. The researchers controlled for variables
such as age, extent of disease, initial treatment, and ultimate
outcome so as to identify cost differences between the in-trial
and out-of-trial patients that were due to trial participation alone.

"It's not right that the only obstacle to possible life-saving
treatment is an insurance company which has ruled that participating
in clinical trials disqualifies you from their health care coverage,"
Rice said.